I came home from the barns today laughing and joking with Laney and a young friend, looked down at my phone and saw I had a missed call.

The call missed was labeled “My Husband’s Whore’s Friend” it made my chest feel tight.I had labeled him that in my contacts, because for a while me and my husband shared a cell phone, and I didn’t want to answer any calls from him, and I wanted my husband to know what I thought about his “friend”.

I have issues, big ISSUES with any person who labels themself a “friend” and then sits back and watches a person totally screw up their life. This man had met my sons on a visit, had listened to my husband talk to me on the phone and then sat next to “the whore” as his mistress. Sorry in my book that makes you not a friend but a user.

I have high expectations of my friends, I don’t make them easily and I expect a lot of them. Are men different? Probably and if being a “man friend” means supporting your friends when they are completely and absolutely making horrible choices then I don’t think I ever want to be a man (not that I planned on becoming one anytime soon, but if a genie appeared and said Kelly you can be a man, it’s easier to pee and they make more money.’I’d have to say no thank you they don’t make good friends, and I like to be a good friend. I can’t keep my mouth shut and follow the “man code of friendship). I don’t think it’s because he was a man, I think it was because he was a good time friend…you know the kind, the ones who are there as long as it’s fun and it’s a good time…but let the hard times come and they are gone.

My husbands real friends didn’t know about the affair, and were shocked when they found out..Why? Because they knew my husband as a husband, a father and a friend, not a lying cheating bastard…who wants to be friends with someone who is selfishly destroying their family? Good time friends, that’s who. My husband’s real friends contacted me when they found out and let me know they were there for me and the kids “Whatever we needed..” His real friends at work didn’t know about the affair, but when his world fell apart and he was left fighting for his family they rallied and helped him.

I had the privilege of meeting some of his real friends during my visit, they are labeled by their names in my phone, and I answer their calls. Am I being a bitch about this? Maybe, and I’m okay with it…if I had an affair on my husband and one of my friends knew and supported it? I would expect my husband to dislike them, and I hope I would realize friends are supposed to tell you when you are wrong, even if you don’t want to hear it.

Friendship to me means keeping each other grounded, having each others back, and protecting each other’s families. If we can’t count on our friends to do that, then who can we count on. I will tell my husband he called, probably not tonight…he’s sick and I don’t want to upset him. Telling him will let him know a “trigger” called today and I’m struggling with it, so I will wait till he feels better.

Will he call him back? I don’t know but I doubt it. My husband is a different person now, and has made new friends. I like his new friends, and have encouraged him to renew friendships with his real friends who live locally. These are guys who know the value of family, and when my husband was a couple thousand miles away while his family was falling apart, called and checked on us and tried to help put back the pieces. They stand here now cheering for us as a family to make it. They are real friends and in my book “Real Men”, if you fall into this category at my house you have been given a compliment.

Don’t mess it up I’d hate to have to come up with a “name” for you too…

“‘Cause I’ve got friends in low places
Where the whiskey drowns
And the beer chases my blues away
And I’ll be okay
I’m not big on social graces
Think I’ll slip on down to the oasis
Oh, I’ve got friends in low places”-Garth Brooks-